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As with every game's development, a lot of things are changed in the process to complete it, so there is some stuff that was cut from the released game. This is a list of things that have been noted from either dumping the game's files, hacking the game with Cheat Engine, from pre-release material, or even things we've found in the files of the game's demo for PS2.
Please note that some images found in the demo may have a blue tint to them. This isn't intentional and is just an artifact from the extraction process. We're currently trying to figure out how to get these images with the correct colors.

ObsCure: Dark Aura (Nintendo DS port)[]

For a long time, there were rumors that ObsCure 2 was supposed to have a port for the Nintendo DS, known as Dark Aura. Supposedly, said port was going to have several changes to the story and gameplay, but there was little evidence of this.
Eventually, it was found out that this port was indeed real, and that the few images available of it were also real.
And more recently, a couple images and a trailer for the port was released to the public, showcasing a prototype that seems to be a lot more complete than initially thought, with a lot of levels, weapons, enemies, multiple playable characters and unique mechanics.
Plus, it was finally confirmed that the port was indeed going to be named "Dark Aura".

Items[]

There are a couple of item renders found in the final game's files, and the demo's files, that can't normally be obtained in the game.

  • ΔΘΓ Panflet: The panflet have written as the title "ΔΘΓ Physical Education Section". It seems to be a panflet of some kind of race, as in it says "Start" and "Finish", it seems that this one is in water and that in middle they have to cross the Turtle Stone Island, here called "Turtle Island". The panflet also says "Good Luck to all of you". This may be a physical labor to test the new members.
  • A Crowbar: This would have been used as a tool, probably to open doors or crates.
  • A Compass: It's unknown for what this could have been used, it could have been used to navigate during the water parts.
  • A Car Key: This seems to be the Twins's Car key, maybe Sven and Mei would have to walk to the parking lot to escape instead of just fading the scene and directly chaging to Corey and Amy.
  • A Black bag: It's unknown its purpose, maybe this belonged to one of the students or was a replaced by the bag at the end of the game with some of the group weapons.
  • A Suitcase: It's unknown the purpose of the suitcase, but one can notice that it has written the Delta letter, so one can asociated with the Brotherhood.
  • A Valve: It's unknown where the second valve would have been used, but one can guess that this one could have been used in the Dam, probably involving the Steam puzzle.
  • Walkie-Talkie: The walkie-talkie used by the Leafmore Survivors.
  • Batteries: A couple of batteries that might have been used for the walkie-talkie
  • A lever: A lever that was meant to be used in the control panel for the crosses puzzle in Jedidiah's basement

The walkie-talkie[]

It seems like originally, the walkie-talkie would been used during gameplay. It can be hacked into the inventory, and thanks to some strings found in the demo's files, we can piece together what its purpose was. It seems like you'd have to find batteries for it, and characters would be able to talk to you through it. This is similar to the radio found in the first Resident Evil game.

The flame-thrower[]

Originally, it seems like there were plans of including a flame-thrower in the game. It seems like it was scrapped early on, as only a high quality render of it exists. A flame-thrower was later added in Final Exam.

Objects[]

Weapon box[]

It seems like early on, the weapon boxes had a different design, with a white texture and no flashing light. This is the only image that exists of this design of the weapon box, and it doesn't show up where it should in early screenshots of the areas where it should be, so it's possible that before it was implemented as a game mechanic, it was just a decorative object in Jedidiah's house.

Maps[]

Recently it was found that the demo version of the game for the PS2 has a couple of maps for the game's levels in bitmap images. These are not found in the final version. After this, we realized that there is one visible map item in the Dam in the game's trailer, and later on we realized that all or most of the frames that would've held these maps were still present in the game's levels, albeit empty.

Map screens[]

These are the maps found in the demo's files that we think would have been used for the maps section in the inventory. It likely would've worked similar to how it worked in ObsCure 1:

Map elements[]

It seems like the maps would display more than just the level's structure itself. There's 3 icons for a door, an open door and a door marked with a cross, found in the demo's files. It seems like the game would display which doors are locked, unlocked or unopenable in the map.s

"Select" maps[]

In the game's demo, you can press select after collecting a map to view a render of it. It seems like this was a placeholder before the full map system had been implemented. Please note that some of these renders have a blue-ish tint to them; they are not meant to be like that, this was an artifact created by the extraction process:


  • Pre-release material: There are a few instances where we can see maps in-game in pre-release material. One example is this screenshot found in the Deluxe Content of the Steam version of the game. We see Amy and Sven (likely not meant to be playable during this section of the game, just that the developers used debug tools to play as them for the screenshot), and Amy seems to be looking at a frame in the wall. It's hard to make out, but it's possible that the map item is in this frame.

Beta puzzles[]

Some puzzles seem to have changed during development.

The library puzzle[]

In the game's demo, while you can't normally get to this part of the game, you can find a beta version of the solution to the library puzzle inside the game's files. It seems like originally you were shown the directions to move each individual shelf, it might've been changed to make it more clear. Also inside the demo's files, one can also find an alternate version of the broken pieces of the solution on the table, without Kenny's photo scattered around. The final version is still present, albeit darker.
Interestingly, if one looks closely at the final version, you can notice that it still uses the old version of the solution with the arrows.

The church door puzzle[]

This one isn't really different, but a small golden AOL insignia was added to the wall, which is kind of redundant.

Hospital door lock[]

A door lock that can be found in the demo's files. This lock exists in the final game, having a green light which turns orange when you get close to it. It's found on the door at the warehouse that leads to Kenny's boss fight. It has no use in the final game, but it can be assumed that at one point you may have had to unlock it.

The spotlights room[]

Thanks to a render found inside the files of the game's demo, strings found in the files of the same demo, some leftover evidence in the final game and a pre-release screenshot that confirms it, we now know that originally, you had to open and possibly fix a circuit breaker with a magnetic lock before you could use the spotlights in the party room in the AOL building.
Most likely, you would've had to hack it open with Mei.

Enemies[]

As we can see from the concept art included with the Steam version of the game, a lot of enemies never made it into the game, and thanks to some pre-release screenshots and the game's trailer, we know that there was also a scrapped boss fight.

Scrapped enemies[]

  • The Butcher: This boss enemy was scrapped probably very late in development, as it can be seen in the game's trailer. While the fight itself was removed, we still have many clues as to how this would've played out.

First, this is the strange man that we can see dragging a bag with a body inside at the beginning of the game, during Corey's nightmare. At one point, we were supposed to fight him, there are a few theories as to when and where, but the most likely one is that it would've taken place right after seeing Sven's "ghost" in the hospital hallway section of the nightmare, but before fighting the two unkillable ArbolTrebols.

It might have also been the original ending of the nightmare, before the fight with the two ArbolTrebols was added. We know that the fight took place in this part of the game thanks to 3 audio files left in the game's files, which have the label "ch01", same as every other audio file used in this section.

The first file, "ch01_boucher_girl_l", which sounds like a background sound of a girl crying, is placed before the first sounds heard in the nightmare, while the other two, "ch01_bt_boucher_b" and "ch01_bt_boucher_l" (these seemed to be music that'd be used during the fight, they're the same as the music used during the encounters with the Breeder) are placed after the sounds heard in the hospital hallway section, although before the sounds played when Jun's and Sven's ghost appear, and of course, before the sounds of the two ArbolTrebol's fight.

Interestingly, the sound that plays after ending the nightmare is placed right after the Butcher's music, indicating that perhaps this originally was the end of the nightmare.

As for the fight itself, it seemed to take place inside Jedididah's house, possibly indicating that either the Butcher was the beta version of Jedidiah, or an abstract form of him meant only for the nightmare.

The house itself was slightly different, featuring more blood and Leonard's roots, similar to those found in the first game. As Corey (it's unknown if Mei would've been also present as the second player, as she can't be seen in the screenshots or trailer), we had a shotgun with limited ammo, and had to shoot the Butcher to stop him from killing whoever was inside the black bag (likely Amy, tho considering ObsCure 2 reuses a lot of voice actors for background characters, one can't be sure).

It's speculated that, like the fight with the two Homme Arbres, this one wasn't winnable, was at the last few frames of the fight in the trailer, we can see that even tho Corey is shooting at the Butcher, it's not stopping his animation of lifting up the machete to kill the person in the bag.

It can be assumed that after this fight, the nightmare would either end or we'd end up in the final end of the nightmare with the Homme Arbres and Amy's corpse.

According to one of the game's environment artists, Benjamin, the fight was likely cut because it wasn't very interesting to play, and ended up being replaced by the fight with the two Homme Arbres.

Beta enemy textures[]

It seems like, no more than 3 months before the game was finalized (according to the file modification dates of the game's demo), all of the enemies' textures were modified, with their colors de-saturated a bit and their brightness decreased.
The first time we realized this was when we were looking at the pre-release material of the game, where clearly the enemies seemed to be more saturated.

Initially, we thought this was just a case of the game's gamma settings being different when these screenshots were taken. However, we eventually realized that some of these old textures were actually still in the game.
Matt's corpse still used the old Runner's texture with the more saturated colors, and the Runner and Harpy corpses in the nightmare section were also based on these old textures, although they are harder to see because they have lower resolutions and have been modified to add more blood.

This pretty much confirmed that the textures were changed at some point. Eventually, we got our hands on the game's demo that was released for Ps2. Its files date to the 10th of April 2007, about 3 months before those in the final Ps2 release. We soon realized the demo still had these old textures, and after a while we were able to dump them.
Sadly, the demo only features 4 enemies, and some of them have very low resolutions compared to the PC version. Here are the comparisons:

Unused rooms[]

Recently, that's to the work of BioShip, we've been able to find out more in-depth things about the game, and just recently, he was able to find a unused room in the game.

  • Sven's room:It's unknown why this room was in the game, as the only time you are able to see it is in a pre-rendered cutscene, and you never return to this area after finishing the first section with Corey. It has an Amorphous enemy in it.
  • Nighttime version of the hallway to Sven's room: It seems like originally, you'd be able to access the hallway that leads to Sven's room after waking up from the nightmare at the beginning of the game. You could take the door previously blocked by two students to enter the same staircase where you get the energy drink. It's unknown why the doors were later blocked.
  • Beta version of the student dormitory: A single hallway that seems to be a mix between the hallway to Corey's room and the hallway to Sven's room. There's a door at the start that leads you to the final version of Corey's room when entered, and the second section of the hallway is very similar to the hallway that leads to Sven's room, including the two students blocking the door.

Sven's room's door is blocked, and is visually damaged, this is possibly related to the enemy that you can find inside the unused Sven's room.


Cut levels[]

Recently, thanks to BioShip, a lot of never before seen materials from ObsCure 2 were released to the public, including a lot of screenshots of never before seen maps.

A student's room[]

A big room from the dormitories that's not in the final game. It also shows up in some concept art. It might be an early version of Corey's room, but we're not sure.

City of Fallcreek[]

It seems like originally, we would've been able to explore the actual town of Fallcreek, as it was overrun by monsters. There are a few images where we see houses, cars, roads, and a bridge. It's possible that this level was later replaced with the Fallcreek Forest.


Differences in the events of the game[]

Jedidiah's house[]

Please note that this section here is only speculation based upon findings inside the game.

If we are to disable the game's functions that would play the cinematic where Jedidiah opens the door in his greenhouse and captures Sven, we'll be able to go through the door while playing as Sven and Amy and explore Jedidiah's house.
It seems that this was originally how the game would play out, because of the following things:

  • Sven has a few extra dialogues, like mentioning that Jedidiah is a strange name when checking out the note he left behind in the main room
  • There's some dark aura around the door to the kitchen, and Sven and Amy have unique dialogue when examining it (no dialogue will show up when checking it out with other characters)
  • You won't hear Sven's voice or screams in the house, which you can normally hear sometimes after Sven has been captured by Jedidiah
  • All the doors in the house are inaccessible, except for the door leading back to the greenhouse area and the door that leads to the hallway with Jedidiah's room, which can be unlocked by Stan. Doing so will reveal that Sven has no dialogue when examining items in this area, meaning that he was never supposed to be here

With this in mind, we theorize that the set of events that would happen are the following:

  • Sven and Amy enter the house through the greenhouse, as usual. However, Jedidiah doesn't attack Sven just yet.
  • You get to explore the house for a bit, but find out that you can't go through any of the doors.
  • At one point, it's unknown when, Jedidiah will come out of the door that has the dark aura around it. This would be where the cutscene takes place, Jedidiah captures Sven and Amy hides in the closet, which explains why she is later found there when we arrive as Stan and Shannon.
  • There are also some unused strings in the game's demo that mention a portrait of a sad man in the house. It's unknown if this is referring to Jedidiah, or Herbert.
  • Also in the demo's files, we can find a string talking about a photo of Leafmore, and a character talking about how a pregnant woman would be shunned back then if she wasn't married. This is likely referring to Elizabeth, so it's possible we were meant to find more memorabilia of the high-school, the Friedman brothers and Elizabeth in the house.
  • Again in the demo's files, we can find a string where characters mention having to get some chairs out of the way to enter the house. Seems like this was later replaced by a lockpicking puzzle to add some difficulty to the section.
  • There's also some evidence that, originally, we were supposed to find a missing lever for the crosses puzzle in the basement. There's an unused lever item, a screenshot where we can see the panel with the levers is missing one of them, and a string in the demo's files that mentions that a console is missing a lever.

Going back to the second floor in the hospital[]

Some leftovers in the final game and unused strings in the demo suggest that, at some point during the development, it may have been possible to go back up to the second floor in the hospital, after Kenny had transformed.

  • There's a string that mentions the "elevator is really dead now". This likely refers to the elevator you have to fix as Corey and Amy.
  • There's also a string that mentions that the magnetic card readers aren't working anymore, and that you have to hack them as Mei. The only card readers you use in the game are the two ones at the hospital, so it seems like you would've gone back to the second floor to do something, and perhaps explore the room where Kenny transformed.

Jun's car[]

It's been known for a while that Jun's car keys are an item in the game, normally unobtainable, but the player can get it not only by hacking the inventory, but also by bypassing the trigger for the cutscene where Mei sees Jun's corpse in the basement, you can get the keys next to her corpse. These can't normally be used during normal play.
It was speculated that at some point, you were supposed to get from the basement to Jun's car to end the chapter, and we can now confirm this by a string found in the demo's files.

The lake[]

Judging by some strings found in the demo, the map, and the compass item, we've speculated that during development, the lake section was meant to be longer and more complex. Characters would claim that the lake seemed infinite and you needed a compass to navigate it. It's possible that they intended for the lake to be "infinite" and you would only be able to reach land by correctly following directions.

Accessing the secret rooms and other interesting things[]

To be able to do this, you must use Cheat Engine, open the game's process and search for the string "characters", and replace the letters with other random ones. This will disable all cutscenes. The reason why this works is because along these strings, there are functions that control certain events in the game.
By renaming said functions, the game will break and will basically disable most triggers in the game, like playing Sven's party cutscene at the start of the game or the cutscene where Jedidiah attacks Seven.

Cut alternate ending[]

Thanks to the extra content found on the PSP version (concept sketches for many of the game's cinematics, including those which didn't make the cut) we know that, at some point, there were plans to have alternate endings. Based on these we came to the conclusion that, originally, the end of the game would essentially be a race against Corey to the stadium.
If you were to reach the stadium before him, he would live. Otherwise, he would end up dead.
This ending was likely cut due to budget constrains, as making a whole other ending cinematic for it would've likely been too costly for the developers.

More recently, we were able to find that part of this cut ending actually exists in the game, but not much. Basically, in the path that leads to the stadium, there's a whole secondary path that reaches a second door in the entrance, said door is normally hard to see. Now, this path has collision, but it wasn't meant for the player to take. It was meant for Corey.
Corey actually does exist in this map, but he's normally made invisible. However, by disabling a game function that makes characters invisible, we can make him visible again. He stands at the beginning of the second path, and doesn't move. You can switch to him if you teleport yourself to where he is, but that's about it.
This likely was scrapped early on, since he doesn't seem to have a path to follow or anything (at least, not that we have found yet).

Character portraits[]

Ignoring the blue tint, these portraits are found within the files of the game's demo. They're different from the portraits used in the final game, and, interestingly, there are smaller versions with the character's siloutte on them. We don't know what those were used for, perhaps they would be the placeholders that would show up before you met those characters, or they may have been used whenever the character died, which could indicate that the game at some point in development, had a perma-death system like the first game.

Unused save icons[]

There are several save icons found in both the final game's files, and the demo's files, that don't match any actual save spots in the game.

Story differences[]

The age of the AOL fraternity[]

In the final game, we're told that the fraternity is celebrating its 200th anniversary. Interestingly, in one of the pre-release screenshots we can see a pamphlet celebrating its 180th anniversary. It's currently unknown whether this was a mistake or if the fraternity was originally founded at a different rate.

A photo of friedman[]

Seems like at some point, you were meant to find a photo of Friedman with Kenny in the fraternity house.

Corey transforms into a monster?[]

There's a string in the demo's files that seems to imply that at some point, Corey may have transformed into a monster. This may be related to the ending, where Kenny implies Corey was going to transform, so it's possible that originally, he was meant to turn into a monster instead of killing himself. The interesting thing is that this dialogue is copied multiple times, implying that multiple characters would talk about this in-game, so it may have occurred at an earlier point in the game. There isn't a lot of evidence about this tho, so it's possible that this is some kind of mis-translation, or a death quote, or something like that.

Gameplay differences[]

Shannon[]

There's an unused string in the demo that suggests that Shannon was able to move things that others couldn't. It's possible that this wasn't referring to heavy objects, but perhaps something that was covered in Dark Aura and only she was able to move it. So far, this is the only thing we've found about this.

Bandages?[]

There's a string in the demo's files that implies you might have been able to use bandages to cure yourself at some point. There isn't any more evidence of this that we've found so far, so it's possible that this is some sort of mistranslation. Interestingly, Alone in the Dark, which was ported to the Ps2 by Hydravision, later had bandages as an item in it.

Level differences[]

There are several differences that can be noticed from the final game's levels in several pre-release material, and even leftover assets found in the final game.

Dance hall[]

In this pre-release screenshot, one can see that the weapons locker is located where the weapon box is in the final game. It has a shotgun inside of it.

Party room[]

In this pre-release screenshot, one can see the circuit breaker from the unused puzzle being open, a few differences in the textures, a corpse, and a sign that claims the Brotherhood is 180 years old instead of 200.

Jedidiah's house[]

According to these screenshots, it seems like originally, the upstairs section had only one hallway, instead of 2 like in the final game. More images with screenshots of this area were recently released to the public.

We also have some even earlier renders of this area

Also, it seems like originally you could find a small key on a table in the house's entrance.

Billiards room[]

Originally, there was a medkit in the middle of the floor in this room. It has been theorized that at some point, the arcade machine would've been covering the medkit, and that's why you can push it.

Student dorm's exterior[]

According to this screenshot, it seems like originally, the box that you have to move in order to climb to the window was on the ground lever, and Sven had to lift it to the ledge.

Student dorm's main hall[]

It seems like originally, the student's dorm main hall was smaller and more cramped, with the general layout being completely different from the final game, but featuring basically the same rooms.

Student dorm's hallways[]

There are two screenshots of what might be either the hallways in the students' dorms, or the hallways in the Fraternity House. They look very different from the final game, with a different color palette and textures. These images are dated to the 2nd of February, 2005.

AOL Fraternity house entrance[]

Originally, the ambulance that can be found here at the end of the game was flipped. This can be seen both in one of the pre-release screenshots and an unused save flower icon.

Fraternity house entrance[]

This image features an extended entrance to the AOL Fraternity house. In the final game, we only see a plane of grass that extends for a little bit. Interestingly, we can actually see what was at the very end of the path in one of the official renders, it had a big wall with a gate for vehicles.

Dance hall[]

Like in the screenshot mentioned above, one can see the weapons locker was located where the weapon box is in the final game in this image, although in this image it has the crossbow instead of the shotgun.

2nd floor of the hospital[]

In this image, one can see that the hallway with the elevator of the hospital's 2nd floor was originally clean, without trashed furniture and no blood.

There are also earlier renders of this map, showing that the layout was mostly the same.

1st floor of the hospital[]

The layout was originally completely different, being quite similar to the hospital found in Resident Evil 3. It seems like the entrance and the hall where all the characters reunite were originally the same room.

The morgue[]

Originally, the corpse that we find in the morgue would've been naked. It might've been changed to avoid a higher age rating, or any controversy.

The dam[]

Originally, the Fallcreek dam was very different. Some of the layout is still the same as the final version, but it's much cleaner, a lot of rooms seemed to be cut or at least changed, and has a lot more doors. In fact, there's a theory that it may have not actually been a dam, but some sort of abandoned hospital or mental asylum.

The sewers[]

Originally, it seems like the sewers were completely different, and much bigger. There was a big set of stairs leading down to them, and they might've played out like some sort of labyrinth.

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